ARTICLES ABOUT BROKERAGE BY DATE - PAGE 4

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's inspector general said on Thursday the government's financial regulator had been removed from his post and banned from holding public office for 12 years after the collapse of the country's largest brokerage. The decision was taken after an investigation into whether the financial watchdog failed to properly monitor the brokerage Interbolsa in the months leading up to its financial implosion last year. Chief regulator Gerardo Hernandez, who will appeal the decision, failed to take sufficient measures to protect Interbolsa shareholders and to prevent its collapse, Inspector General Alejandro Ordonez told reporters.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nasdaq OMX Group Inc said on Monday Eric Noll, the exchange operator's top internal candidate to replace Chief Executive Robert Greifeld, is leaving to become president and chief executive of brokerage ConvergEx. Noll will replace Joseph Velli, current CEO of ConvergEx, which is owned by Chicago-based private equity firm GTCR and Bank of New York Mellon, by the end of the year, ConvergEx said. "This was a unique opportunity to be a CEO of an important player in the market place," Noll said in an interview.

Two realty brokerages with deep roots in the Chicago area's housing market -- Koenig & Strey and Prudential Rubloff -- are merging and adopting a name with an international reputation, that of Berkshire Hathaway. In a multipronged transaction to be announced to agents Tuesday, HomeServices of America Inc., an affiliate of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, has acquired Prudential Rubloff Properties and its subsidiaries and will merge them into its Real Living Real Estate unit. Next spring, the combined entity will be renamed Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices KoenigRubloff Realty Group.

(Reuters) - TD Ameritrade Holding Corp, the biggest U.S. discount brokerage by client-trading volume, reported a 40 percent jump in its fiscal fourth-quarter net income that just beat analysts' estimates as both trading commissions and product fees soared. Shares of TD Ameritrade were down 1.1 percent to $27.62 in afternoon trading on Tuesday. In research reports, some analysts said they were disappointed at the decline in net interest margin during the quarter and the firm's weak interest profit forecast for next year.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fees drove a 33 percent rise in profits at Wells Fargo Corp's brokerage and wealth management businesses in the third quarter from the same quarter a year ago, underscoring the continued transition of brokers from transaction-based salespeople to fee-compensated asset gatherers. Profit at the bank company as a whole rose by a better-than-expected 13 percent in the third quarter, as it made up for a decline in its industry-leading mortgage business by releasing a large chunk of money set aside for bad loans.

SEOUL, Sept 9 (Reuters) - South Korean financial regulators are reviewing three foreign brokerages including Goldman Sachs Group Inc's local unit for possible breach of domestic capital markets regulations, a source at one of the regulators said. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) is investigating whether Goldman Sachs sold foreign bonds in the domestic market through its Hong Kong unit, which does not have any license to sell such products directly in South Korea, the source told Reuters on Monday.

The long-time auditor for failed brokerage Peregrine Financial Group has been barred from working as an accountant for firms overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The futures regulator barred Jeannie Veraja-Snellings for failing to detect the massive fraud at Peregrine. Veraja-Snelling, who ran her accounting firm from a Chicago suburb, lacked the expertise to audit a futures brokerage, the CFTC said in its order. "There is no place ... for below-standard audits or auditors who do not have a sufficient understanding of the futures industry," David Meister, the CFTC's top enforcement official, said in a statement.